Harsh Times [HD DVD] | Christian Bale, Freddy Rodríguez | Bale's mad, crazed wastreling eagle

Harsh Times [HD DVD] | Christian Bale, Freddy Rodríguez | Wasted lives

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Harsh Times [HD DVD]

	Harsh Times [HD DVD] Christian Bale, Freddy Rodríguez The Weinstein Company Home Entertainment, 2007 average customer review:based on 64 reviews view larger image
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Bale's mad, crazed wastreling eagle

Pure cinema, beautifully composed. Bale rips through the screen and then rips out your heart. Supporting characters are all played to perfection as well. I'm surprised by many of the other reviews, but thought this was a superb piece of movie making.

Wasted lives

Gritty doesn't begin to describe this somber, very dark vision of two close friends in Los Angeles. A warning right here: this movie is not for the faint of heart. I'm sure Los Angelenos would rather not have this image of its citizenry emblazoned on the minds of the movie-viewing public, but I'm beginning to get the impression that at least certain areas of that city are pretty dangerous places to visit.

Jim Davis (Christian Bale) returns from Iraq with a serious case of killing fever and a burning ambition to become a law enforcement officer. His childhood best friend Mike (Freddy Rodriguez), a likeable follower, doesn't realize that his friend, whom he obviously hero-worships, has gone over to the dark side; he is visibly troubled by early exhibitions of the change in Jim (road rage directed at a stranger after reading a turn-down letter from the LAPD) but apparently assumes it is a passing phase. Together the two buddies drift into a pattern of cruising the streets and reconnecting with questionable old contacts and smoking and drinking the day away. Mike is ostensibly out leaving resumes (he is out of work) and under pressure from his successful wife (Eva Longoria), who is a lawyer, to get a job. Jim is Mike's transportation; and Jim goes from highs to lows in his endeavours to become an officer. After his turn-down from the City, he indulges in a little sorry-for-himself pot-smoking with Mike; and the next day receives a call from Homeland Security to come in for a urine test. I'm not exactly sure what procedure he applies to circumvent the residual THC in his urine - it appeared to be painful - but whatever he does, he somehow passes the test and is called back by the Feds. They aren't exactly fooled by him, however; the leader of an elite force within Homeland Security is shopping for a character like Jim, who can kill with impunity and lack of remorse and is willing to bypass a few inconsequential points like pot-tainted pee. This is the opportunity Jim has been waiting for and he jumps at it.

There is a hitch, however; Jim has a sweetheart in Mexico whom he wants to marry, but the Feds convince him now is not the time. They sign him up to ship him out the next week, and he decides to have one last fling in Mexico, and take his buddy Mike and another good friend along for the ride.

From here a story that has been grim and heartless almost throughout sinks into despair. Jim suffers from flashbacks, which are aggravated by conflict; Mike, a basically sweet guy who at heart wants to straighten up and fly right chooses, against the will of his wife, to go to Mexico - right after he has won her approval of him by getting a great job; she argues with Jim about taking her husband on a fool's errand, and Mike misses the warning signs of Jim's flashpoint anger and decides to side with his buddy over his wife. In retrospect, he really should have stayed at home.

This is a sad, dark movie, aptly named. It's hard to work up any empathy for anyone in it, except possibly for Mike and his wife, who are struggling (and succeeding, on the part of the wife) to come out on the sunny side. Mike has been guilty of bad behaviour in the past, and is guilty of going along with Jim's schemes now, but with a finite point in view; ultimately he is reaching for respectability. Jim is like a man-eating tiger; he has gotten the taste of death in his mouth, and cannot escape the need for it.

For those who appreciate such violent, bloody films (there is a high body count here), it is well-acted, well-paced, and understandable. It certainly kept my attention. I certainly hope I never encounter characters like most of the ones in this film, but I'm not sorry I watched it.

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3 and a half, fourish stars. once again it's all about the bale.

like another reviewer said somewhere, a director could tell christian bale to stare at a wall for two hours and he'd pull it off somehow. like the taxi driver review says, this film is far from "training day 2" despite the similar backdrop of l.a.'s seedier areas and is more of a commentary on the effects of war when it comes to an already morally ambiguous person. the other characters talk about how "chill" he used to be before joining up for a tour or two in what he calls "trashcanistan". as he is drawn slowly toward his violent past and rejected by the l.a. police (for - guess what - a sketchy psych evaluation), his mental state starts to return to an instinctual and heartless automaton. his friends, his beautiful mexican girlfriend that he wants to move stateside, himself - they're all fair game when the feds offer him a job messing around in colombia.

that's pretty much the plot - this ex-soldier guy and his never-soldier friend both get "real" jobs and decide to celebrate their postponed adulthood by drinking, smoking pot and occasionally jacking a drug dealer or two. when it goes downhill, it goes downhill FAST.

like i said, for all this film's flaws (and it has a few) bale pretty much nails the character of an ex-military dork with a little frat boy and a little hick thrown in for flair. he acts like a jerk at his job interview and gets some good laughs in the process...he snaps and you can see true anger in his face - he's doing "crazy" without getting stuck in "patrick bateman" crazy or "the machinist" crazy.

i'd recommend it, but don't expect perfection...just a great watch with some wicked performances all around.

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Three-star movie, four-star Bale

The movie itself is OK, pretty good, nothing really special. It's Christian Bale's performance that makes it rock out. As a south central Los Angeles streetwise white guy, it's astonishing to hear this Brit nail the speech mannerisms and character of what fundamentally amounts to a crazed loser who doesn't know a good thing when he sees it.

Still having nightmares about his experience in the Gulf War as a soldier, Jim Davis (Bale) gets rejected by the LAPD for a job, but also gets contacted by Homeland Security--they're interested in him as a candidate. With a girlfriend in Mexico and his best friend a Mexican-American Angeleno (Freddy Rodriguez as Mike), Davis goes cruising with Mike through the mean streets of the city, basically looking for trouble. Davis is fluent in Spanish--another reason Homeland Security is interested in him (you'll see what I mean when you see the movie).

And they find it. Murder figures largely in this movie--one of the murders is really shocking--as well as humiliation, deception, and truly crazed behavior. Eva Longoria turns in a solid performance as a somewhat believable girlfriend of Mike who's now a lawyer, but still "addicted" to street language when he provokes her into it based on devious behavior. And old reliable J.K. Simmons is fine in a small role as a Homeland Security agent who knows Davis is a man with trouble embedded deep inside him.

As one of the producers of the movie, Bale obviously had more at stake here than just his role as an actor, but he really does "tear up the screen" as the DVD cover blurb states. Directed by David Ayer, who also wrote the screenplay for Training Day--a similar movie in which Denzel Washington proved he could be as great a bad guy on screen as he could a good guy--Harsh Times has the same close juxtaposition of good and evil in a dangerous environment.

Davis' Mexican girlfriend, Marta, really loves him a lot--so much so that even when he starts truly flipping out on her, she still tells him she is madly in love with him. But Davis is too far gone...

See this for Bale's performance; it'll knock your socks off.

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Gritty performance dawg

After reading some of the reviews here I came away with the feeeling that this film is misunderstood. It is a pretty good depiction of relationships and the street life. BTW, there won't be much plot discussion here as it has been done plenty already. Why rehash it? Anyway Christian Bale is brilliant in his portrayl of a returning Vet to the mean streets of South Central(that would be LA if you don't know)who falls into his old patterns and takes Freddy Rodriquez, his homie, along the inevitable tragic and destructive path. There is plenty of violence, some of it schocking. It is one of those movies where you are enjoying the mayhem but know it is going to be a sad ending. Well sad, if only you sympathize with the characters, which apparently many people did not. If testosterone driven movies are your thing than you will love this movie. If you over think it you might not like it. Back to Bale's character, which is totally believeable and full of rage, confusion and macho supercharged. These guys exist, I've met them , known them and stayed clear of them.They are hell bent on self destruction and are taking prisoners, in this case, Freddy Rodriguez. Christian Bale is a psycho-cool guy who walks the line between the socio-cultural world of his "homies" and the straight world of law enforcement(homeland security)like a well balanced cat. His character can go from saying "yo vato" to "yes sir" without missing a beat. It is fun to watch. I really enjoyed his performance, thought Freddy Rodriguez was above average and Eva Longoria(now Parker)was smoking hot and the only sensible character in the movie. I loved the relationship between Bale and Longoria. It was the hate my man's best friend but love my man relationship. She fights to keep him to her self.Why do some women do that? Anyway this movie was very cool, had me riveted throughout but the first half was better than the I-know-this-is-going-to-end-bad second half.If you can relate to the world of homies and their cronies, like action flicks and want to see a good performance by Christian Bale than check this movie out.

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